


Aidoneus Rose

by INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Depression, F/M, Falling In Love, Heroes & Heroines, I aim for the depths of your soul, I can never write something simple, I write longass fics, It's not the story you thought you knew, Metaphors, Past Infidelity, Sleeping Beauty Elements, Spells & Enchantments, Witch Curses, With Lots Of Angst, hold on tight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon/pseuds/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon
Summary: A Prince, born in a time of magic, in a land on the brink of war.A Queen, with a debt to repay.A Witch-King, cruel and exacting in his price.And a travelling herbalist, in the right place, at the right time.Sleeping Beauty, indeed....
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Hades/Persephone (Lore Olympus), Kronos/Rhea (Lore Olympus)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 54
Collections: Lore Olympus Fairytales





	1. Thorns

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon/pseuds/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon) in the [LoreOlympusFairytales](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/LoreOlympusFairytales) collection. 



“Majesty, I may have a suggestion….”

“Speak, please. You are my highest advisor, you know your counsel is welcome, always.”

“Send the child from the palace. Only then will we stand a sure chance of preventing the curse from being fulfilled. Send the child from this place until the danger is past….”

“But… nearly twenty and one years…. It is too high a price!”

“You know your other options, Majesty. Only this stands a chance of thwarting the curse entirely and still ensuring the royal line continues true. Only this….”

The figure silhouetted against the moonlight streaming through the balcony’s sheer curtainry seemed to collapse, the bold stance and hard strength weakening under the weight of unalterable truth and dire dread.

“Of course, Hecate. You are right, of course. Thank you, Trusted Friend. Will you see to the arrangements? I…. I cannot bear the thought….”

“Certainly, my Queen. I think I know just the solution….”

* * *

“Alecto, you aren’t going to believe this message we got today!”

“Hush, Megaera! This scrying spell is extremely delicate!”

“But-!”

“NO! ….Aw, damn. Look at that! Just great!”

“I’m sorry, but-!”

“Alecto, what did Meg do this time? PUT THE KNIFE DOWN, ALECTO!”

“NO! SHE COMES BARGING IN, AGAIN, AND RUINED IT, AGAIN, AND THAT’S THE LAST-!”

“Tis, please! This message, it’s very important! It’s from the palace!”

“....”

“Hear that, Alecto? You didn’t need to be spying on the palace after all.”

“.... _ SCRYING! _ ”

* * *

“Are you sure about these three, Hecate? I really don’t know how I feel about magic-users being involved this closely….”

“My Queen, these three are the strongest spell-weavers in your Realm’s reach. They have never once offered harm to any, and are most adept in their chosen rituals and strengths. They are the best protection for this task, I am certain. As certain as I am that their names are passing strange….” This last was said for the Queen’s ears alone, and the Monarch of Kthonia smothered a chuckle as the Chief Advisor to the Throne stepped forward to announce the guests to the nearly-empty audience chamber. 

“The Throne recognizes Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, of the Bounding Wood. Approach, and accept your charge.”

The Witches came closer to the stepped dais whereupon the Queen sat enthroned, and the Majesty Herself appraised these forest-sprites with a calculating eye. The eldest, Alecto, wore a saffron-yellow smock, dabbled over with paint and berry-juices and slashed along the hem and cuffs as if she’d been running through brambles just minutes before. 

The second, Tisiphone, had her dark hair in loose ringlets, and wore a dark-grey tunic and breeches beneath. She moved with a panther’s grace, and her eyes, though watery-seeming, were never still in their sweeping glances; the Queen felt an instinctive fear, and a subtle shift of her foot assured her that her dagger was still bound to her calf beneath her skirts. 

The third seemed childlike, compared to the other two. Where Alecto held the self-assured and flighty air of an artist who knows what she’s about, and Tisiphone was obviously a protector bred and born, this Megaera could have been described as nothing but sweet. 

Until one noticed the matched blades rising like phantoms over her shoulders, and the glinting metallic shine of chain mail peeking through frayed rents in her leathery tunic.

The Queen nodded absently, but she knew her Advisor would take the silent thanks in stride. 

_ This, yes…. This could work. _

“Will you give to me your undying fealty, Witches of the Bounding Wood? Will you swear your loyalty to me, and to the task I now will give you, until it be complete?”

Three heads bowed, and three pairs of silver eyes glinted up at her once more as those heads pulled back again.

“Then take my son, and keep him safe, until he reach twenty and one years in age. He must never return to this palace before that time, and he must never learn who he was born, until that day arrives. The fate of this entire realm, our bright Kthonia itself, relies on your power and devotion to this task. Fulfill your pledge, return my son to me when he reaches his twenty-first birthday, and you shall have whatever you desire, even to portions of my land and wealth. Are we agreed?”

Three voices answered her in lilting harmony as Hecate retrieved the infant Prince from his bassinet at the Queen’s side. 

“ _ We are agreed, bright Rhea, Rose of the Realm…. Your little Thorn is safe with us…. _ ”

The infant was given to Alecto, and the Wood’s Witches turned on their heels and strode with purpose from the audience chamber. No guards met them at the doors, and they disappeared into the moonless night without any soul knowing where they had gone to.

The Bounding Wood, after all, was a magical place. It didn’t always stay in the same spot for long….

But the curse was a horrible thing, and Rhea, she whose name meant Rose in the Realm’s oldest tongues, knew she had done the best thing she could to give her son a chance to live….

She stood on her balcony late that night as a cold wind blew, farewell and hope upon her lips:

_ “Goodbye, my Aidoneus, son of Rose, until we meet once more….” _

* * *

_ Sleep, pretty things…. _

_ That’s it. Sleep, still and long…. _

_ Perfect! _

_ That’s more like it! Freedom! _

Thorn bounded through the waist-high grasses outside the cozy little cottage where his Aunties were sleeping soundly. He kept his bubbling enthusiasm contained until he was past the stream and the bright sounds of the Bounding Wood provided plenty of camouflage for his roaring laughter.

He tossed the apple high in the air and caught it again with a flourish, spinning a little on one bare foot as a breeze tossed old leaves and soft petals high in the air. 

_ What a beautiful morning! _

_ Sometimes, I think those sleeping spells only work on dull days, but this! _

_ Ha! This is magnificent! _

It had taken months before he realized his Aunties were far too powerful in their own magic to fall victim to a young man’s sleep spells when they were awake. He’d paid for that misjudgment with a lot of extra chores in the kitchen from Alecto, and clearing privy lines under Tisiphone’s stony presence, and running through punishing obstacle courses in remote sections of the Wood from Megaera.

But it hadn’t stopped him from experimenting….

The call of a stroll, alone, through the Wood on bright mornings like this was strident despite the punishment he’d already received.

He finally determined that while they wouldn’t  _ fall _ asleep at his eldritch command, they might be induced to remain asleep  _ longer _ with a soft spell or two….

And then it had been a matter of determining how much power to put into the spells for one of his Aunties, and then two, and then all three, for a few minutes, then dozens of minutes, then an hour, and then two and even three….

For months now, he’d managed to encourage them to stay up late a few nights a week, playing games or reading together by the fire, and the following morning he would wake with a well-timed spell set to buzz in his head without any actual physical sound, and then he could spell-weave his Aunties for a few hours, and they’d never realize they hadn’t just been tired from the night before. 

And he could explore the ever-shifting Wood to his curious heart’s content….

And this morning looked to be turning into the best yet!

An old favorite book in his pocket, a fresh apple fit to burst in his hand, and….

_ Is that wood-smoke? _

_ And…. husk-cherries?! _

Following the scent, stalking through the undergrowth nearly-silently, he finally found the source of the disturbance in his morning spell-stolen stroll.

A planked-over wagon, rounded on top and boxy at the base, sat beside an old dried-up creek bank. Tufts of grass hung over the lip of the bank like the cowlick over his right eye, and there was a fire crackling softly in a ring of large grey stones a few paces from that contraption. 

He’d never seen a wagon like this in person, but he’d read about them, sure….

Beside the fire, seated on an up-turned section of hacked-off log, a young woman sat husking the fruit, her skirts rucked up around her knees to catch the cleaned-off bits; much of the paper-thin husks were coasting down to soft landings around her bare feet.

Her red-brown hair was messy in the heat from the fire, and her gaze was tight on the pile of fruit still to her side in a wooden pail, mounded high and apparently the cause of her long-suffering misfortune….

Thorn thought he had never imagined a more magical sight than this unexpected scene before his disbelieving eyes. He saw no danger in the clearing, and the young woman was alone, in the Bounding Wood, and he was alone, and she had husk-cherries….

_ Like Fate Itself wrote this into being…. _

He gave a soft  _ cooooo _ , not unlike a mourning dove, and watched her as she began scanning the brambles behind which he crouched. 

He saw her bright green eyes widen in surprise as she caught his silhouette through the dappled shadows and bright sunlight speckles….

* * *

_ I can’t believe Mother wants to make husk-cherry soup tonight. That’s just awful….  _

_ What I wouldn’t give for some company, though. This wood, it feels different. There’s hardly any animals roaming, and…. _

_ Was that a dove? _

She scanned the brush bordering the creek bed her mother had chosen for their campsite, eyes moving steadily from shadow to sunlight shine, cataloguing every branch and stone and mound of leaf duff in passing. When searching for elusive creatures, it was always better to never focus too hard on any one section; animals had a seeming magical sense for knowing when they’d been spotted. This trick was one hunters, travelers, and wilds-dwellers all learned from a young age, and it was habit by now for this herbalist’s daughter after nearly seventeen years on the roads.

So she was fully prepared to note the huddled form of a grounded dove after that lovely call met her ears as she scanned the brushwood, and she therefore couldn’t keep from staring in startled surprise as her eyes encountered the lean silhouette of a crouched male body, hunched behind a picked-clean husk-cherry bush. 

“Oh, my…. Hello!” Her voice pitching high with the excitement of an unexpected and yet wished-for visitor, she started to clamber to her feet. 

However, her skirt was partially trapped beneath the edge of the overfull pail of husk-cherries, and that mountain of tart-sweet fruit toppled as she stumbled from the lurching pull of fabric caught on weighted-down splinters. 

“Gingersnaps!”

Staggering away from the spreading puddle of rolling fruits, she clicked her tongue against her teeth once, hard, at the frustration. 

And then she gasped as two calloused hands wrapped gently around her cocked-out elbows and her back was suddenly braced against a lean torso, warm under a thin linen shirt. 

Her own woolen shawl and linen smock suddenly felt unbearably warm….

“Careful, there’s a large root right here; you wouldn’t want to end up on the ground, too….”

She stepped away from that ember-like warmth, turning slowly to face the man.

She could have been mistaken about his age, but she didn’t think so. That youthful excitement and boyish innocence were appealing, in the most genuine of ways. He had to be about her age, somewhere between 20 and 23, she was certain, but he looked like he belonged in these woods. 

Fey-like charm in the angles of his face, and a brightness in his pine-green eyes that sang of happy thoughts and simple pleasures. She finally swept her gaze down the lines of his body, and she was shocked to see the state of his clothes.

_ They’d only be clothes if there was more cloth than patch…. _

He wasn’t indecent; he was completely covered, at least, but the clothes were hard-worn and definitely due for repair, yet again. They had the look of cast-offs originally meant for a smaller figure, poorly refitted to wrap his large frame. He did not smell, unless that softly-spiced scent was him; but his bare feet were covered in dust, and there were slight mud-stains on the cuffs of his pants, halfway between his knees and ankles. His sleeves were rolled past the elbows, but one seemed less-bunched than the other. She thought it might have been some inches shorter in length than its partner, if both had been unbound. 

Overall, the image he presented was one of man-child forest-waif, and she found herself oddly attracted to the contrasts he embodied. 

Especially when she finally took into account the apple he held under one leanly-muscled arm, and the leathery cover of a book peeking from the pocket at his hip, in front of the wrinkled hem of his shirt….

_ A forest-waif, who reads and eats fresh fruit? _

_ I definitely need to know more about this waif…. _

“Thank you, I appreciate the help. Could I impose upon you for help with these, um, irritating little fruits, as well?”

He grimaced at her, and she wondered why. Her unspoken question was answered as he moved to kneel beside the up-ended pail: “Husk-cherries are delicious, you shouldn’t insult them. It’s not their fault you knocked them over….”

His voice was serious, as if he were passing judgment on a thief or murderer.

She stared at him pop-eyed for a minute before laughing aloud and moving to kneel across the field of scattered fruit from his hunched body. His apple rested on her vacated log-stool, and he leaned on his left hip, keeping his frame from crushing the book still in his pocket. 

“My apologies to the lover of husk-cherries! I personally don’t care for them at all, but I will respect them for the sake of my savior…. My name is Persephone, and might I have yours, good forest-waif?”

He smirked without raising his eyes. “Thorn. My name is Thorn.” The wooden pail was nearly half-filled, and he walked on his knees to move closer to the middle of the blast zone. 

“Do you live nearby, Thorn?”

“I…. I suppose. But the Bounding Wood could make a liar of me in the next few minutes, so….”

“So, it really is magical? Won’t my mother be shocked. She thought the rumors only rumors….”

“No, it’s a bit temperamental, but usually worst around thunderstorms, something about the-... Mother?!”

His eyes were wide on hers then, and her hands drifted to a stop halfway to the pail. “Um, yes. She’ll be back anytime, but she’s a good sort, really….”

“I’m sorry.” He swallowed thickly, snatching his eyes back to the diminishing nebula of husk-cherries between their knees on the dusty ground. “I just…. I’ve never met anyone who had a mother, still. I don’t have….”

She gasped, tears welling bright as her heart wept for his obvious pain. “Oh…. Well, you’re welcome to meet my mother. I can’t say she’s a prime example of the creatures, but she’s really a good sort, truly!”

His chuckle was soft as he took the last of the fruit from her fingertips. “I’d really like that. This is better than anything I could have wished for this morning, thank you, P-p… Perseph-nneeah?”

She managed to keep from laughing at how he slurred her name in his uncertainty: barely. “Per-seh-pho-nee.”

“Persephone. I won’t forget you.”

She wondered at the phrasing, and couldn’t deny the fluttery feeling in her stomach as she pulled herself onto her feet, brushing dust and bits of leaves and husks off her skirts. “Well, I really need to finish husking those. My mother will be back soon; would you stay with me for the time being?”

“That depends. I…. I really just wanted some of those husk-cherries. Could…. Um, could we barter for them?” His hesitation was beyond endearing; he almost sounded like a child entering a market for the first time, knowing how things should go in a long-studied theoretical interaction but never actually having completed one before in reality.

“I suppose. Mother doesn’t need this many for her soup, I’m sure we could spare a few handfuls. I think I would need your help husking them, as part of their price….”

“Done! I love husking them!”

“Then, may I borrow your book? I don’t think I’ve read that one. I’ll give you an extra few handfuls for the book….”

“Done! I’ve read it over too many times; well worth the price!”

“Then get husking, Thorn, and hand over the book!”

His laugh rang through the trees, and Persephone could have sworn the birds singing overhead stopped to listen. 

There was magic in his laughter, and the sunlight seemed dim compared to his brilliant smile as she took the book from his outstretched hand.

_ Oh, dear…. _

_ You have no idea how you seem, do you, Thorn? _

_ I could swear you are a fey indeed; and this a dream, and soon, I will wake to weep at the loss of what could be…. _

_ But perhaps the happiness is only ever in the moment…. _

_ I won’t regret this before I must, before life demands I return this happiness for reality’s dim security. _

Thorn folded his long legs and sat upon the ground; he set to husking cherries, alternating between a pile on the hem of her skirt where she sat on her log-end and a pile on a large leaf between his bent legs. He pulled one from his pile every few moments, popping the morsel between his lips with soft gasps of pleasure, and she began to chuckle quietly every so often as he did. 

_ I won’t forget you, either, Thorn, my strange and sudden forest-waif.  _

_ You and your bright-pine eyes and doe-brown hair…. _

_ Like Fate Itself wrote you into being, I could swear it true…. _

_ Take a long time, Mother. I want this to last…. _

* * *

_ Voices, from our camp…. _

_ My Persephone, and…. A male?!?! _

Demeter peered around the trunk of a large birch tree, a spell of binding on her lips and no thought in her mind but protection.

What she saw could not have been more unexpected. 

A handsome young man, seated on the ground at her daughter’s feet, husking those tart-sweet cherry-like fruits like he had not a care in the world but the task at hand. Her daughter was smiling, genuine and carefree, for the first time in too long an unremembered while, and Demeter could feel the absolute innocence of the moment. 

Her rage died like a winter-killed blossom, and she hitched her carry-sack higher onto her shoulders as she emerged from the shadows of the birch tree’s massive form. 

“Daughter, I’ve returned!”

The young man with bright eyes, shining with passionate green light even across the distance still between their bodies, stared at her as Persephone rose and moved to intercept Demeter. His mouth hung open in awe, and Demeter wondered if he might in fact be a little touched….

“Mother, I’m glad!” Persephone pulled Demeter into a tight hug, holding her closer than she had since her little girl was a little girl in truth. 

As Persephone began whispering intently into Demeter’s ear, it all became poignantly clear.

“Please don’t be angry. You didn’t need all those husk-cherries, and he really likes them. He won’t say where, but he lives in the wood, and he’s a good soul, Mother. He’s sweet, and kindly, and I like him. And he doesn’t have a mother; in fact, he says he’s never  _ met _ a mother, as if they’re some elusive creature! Please, be gentle with him. He’s so sweet….”

Persephone pulled away, turning with a brilliant smile back to the young man, still seated, dumbstruck and staring from the ground. “Thorn, this is my mother, Demeter.”

“H-h-hello, Lady…. I…. I’ve nearly got the husk-cherries s-s-sor-sorted; Persephone said you were making soup?”

“Yes, that was the plan. Thorn, is it?” The young man nodded, eyes still wide and innocent; his tawny hair flopped and flounced over his brow, and Demeter stifled a chuckle at the waif-like childishness of this yet-grown man. “You’ve done wonderfully with the husk-cherries. I’d say you earned your portion, there.”

He snatched his gaze down to the pile on a leaf between his legs, and he seemed to suddenly realize the state of his clothing. He thrashed to his bare feet, somehow not even brushing the pile of fruit, and began hastily patting at his shirt hem and the fabric over his thighs. 

Persephone moved toward him a step, as if she would go to him and stop his frantic movements, but then she only brought her hands to her mouth in worry.

Demeter turned her attention to lowering her carry-sack to the ground, giving the young man time to find his composure.

The flapping noises of hasty dusting-off finally eased, and Demeter turned to see Persephone walking calmly back to her log as if nothing had happened. 

_ She does seem truly happy, somehow, to simply be near him…. _

_ I may not be that gifted with magic, but I’d have to be blind to miss the way this feels. _

_ Fate, what kind of game are you playing with my daughter and this waif-child of a man…? _

* * *

The soup had been consumed as the sun climbed to its pinnacle overhead, and the conversation had flowed steadily around simple things that made sense to a woods-dwelling almost-sprite and two travelling herbalists with magic in their veins.

The turning of the seasons, near and far; the plants and fruits native to the area; the nuisance of boar and the predations of wolf and wyrm….

Not once did any of these unlikely companions mention pasts or intentions; they deliberately avoided those pitfalls, in favor of simple enjoyment in a bright summer noontime spent with warm food and soft words….

Until a shadow passed the sun, a cloud casting darkness through the shifting branches high above, and Thorn suddenly threw himself to his feet.

_ “I didn’t realize it was already so late! _ ”

He turned and bolted into the wood, nearly disappearing as the shifting shadows and soft bird-calls swallowed his passage.

Persephone didn’t make it a step beyond the cleared space around the fire-pit before she drifted to a stop. 

Both the apple and the book remained on the ground beside the log where she’d sat for the last hour-and-some, and she had no idea how to find the strange forest-waif with an herb-lore name.

It was as if he’d never been, except for the husks of cleaned fruit drifting away in the rising breeze, the notes of spice-and-mystery fading under the wind’s glancing touch….

* * *

“Okay, we’re all agreed. I’ll do the explaining?”

“Yep.” “Sure.”

“Alright, here he comes. Settle….”

“Morning, Aunties.”

“Oh, Thorn, you look awful, are you okay?!”

“Megaera, hush!”

“Easy, Alecto.”

“She’s always distracting him, Tis! ALWAYS INTERRUPTING ME!”

“Aunties, please, calm down!” Thorn moved to the sturdy chair at the far end of the wooden table. His hair was as mussed as it always was, and he ran a hand through it without thinking to try to keep it from flopping into his eyes. He hunched over the table, hair defying him anyway, and sighed, nearly groaned in fact. “I didn’t sleep well. I think I had a nightmare. Or ten. But what’s so important that you three are being all tense and stuff this sun-shine morning?”

He threw them what he hoped was his winning smirk, but he must have looked as bad as Meg said, because they only cast worried glances at one another instead of answering his question.

Alecto finally cleared her throat imperiously before pushing herself out of her chair, her hands flat on the table as she took in an enormous breath.

“You’re twenty-one today, and we have to take you home.”

Thorn only blinked, and Alecto blinked back.

“Alecto, you’re terrible at explaining things, sit down!”

“You shut up, Tis! It’s fine! I explained it perfectly!”

“Sit  _ down! _ ” Tisiphone shoved her older sister back into her chair, a soft leathery rag suddenly appearing from the ether to bind Alecto’s mouth as her eyes went huge.

Thorn couldn’t help but chuckle tiredly at his Aunties’ magic-fueled antics.

He turned his eyes to Megaera as she moved closer to him, fingers trailing lightly across the table; he’d always admired his Auntie Meg, more than the other two, though they’d never admit they knew his preference. She was so sweet, and yet so powerful. He always felt safe and loved and cared for beyond the telling when his Auntie Megaera looked at him like that….

“Thorn, this may be a bit of a shock, but we’re not really your aunties. See, we were, um…. Well, we were hired to take care of you for all these years. We didn’t do it for the money or anything; we did it, because you needed us. Because the Kingdom needed you.

“Still needs you. You’re the crown-prince of Kthonia, Thorn. Your mother, the Queen, gave you to us to protect you. You’re twenty-one today, and we don’t have to protect you anymore. 

“So, we’re going to take you to the palace, to your mother, and you’ll be home….”

His Auntie Meg’s eyes were filled with tears, and Thorn swallowed hard as he felt something inside him stirring at her words.

_ It’s the truth…. That truth spell, it’s never stopped working. She’s telling the truth…. _

It had been one of his first experiments in magic, and it had stayed with him for nearly ten years. What he should have done, what his Auntie Tisiphone had instructed him to do, had been to implement a spell that would reveal the truth of an illusioned object: an easy method to break through glamours and camouflages and avoid being tricked. He’d changed the wording and a few of the ingredients in the powder and cast the spell upon his own self. 

None of them had ever been able to lie or deceive him since. Not even about his birthday presents, few and far between as those were. 

He was proud of himself for this, yet and still, even after the extra privy lines and drills with staff and dirk….

And so he knew, beyond any doubt, that his Aunties had truly cared for him. They hadn’t taken care of him for money, or glory. 

They’d done it because they cared for their homeland; and for him.

They cared for him, and they would still give him up….

“You’re wrong, Auntie Meg. You can take me to the palace, but I won’t be home….”

He pulled her into a tight embrace, feeling the tears she shed onto his rumpled shirt soaking clean through the threadbare fabric, warm on his skin beneath.

“I don’t want to lose my Aunties…. If I’m really the crown-prince, I should have some say in things, right?” He pushed her trembling form away from his body, staring deeply into her grey-violet eyes until she nodded in agreement. “Then, I, Prince Thorn, ummmm, decree….” He smirked as Tisiphone laughed and Alecto grumbled amusement from behind her gag. “I decree that my Aunties will always be welcome in the palace, magic-powered arguments and all, because they’re my family, and wherever I can be with them is home….”

His Auntie Meg nearly choked him with her embrace, and he chuckled a little as she loosened her grip.

“Oh, but one more thing, boy.” Tisiphone ripped the gag from Alecto’s mouth, a devilish grin on her face. “Your name isn’t Thorn. You’re Prince Aidoneus, son of Rhea, the Rose of the Realm of Kthonia.”

Alecto punched Tisiphone’s shoulder as she bowled past, moving to a black-cloth draped stand in a shadowy corner of the living space. “Happy birthday, Prince Aidoneus….” Alecto whipped the black-cloth away, and Thorn rose to his feet in disbelief.

“Wow….”

* * *

“Alright, alright, everyone breathe. Don’t forget to breathe. They’re nearly here, just…. Breathe.”

Hecate gave one last sweeping glance to either side of the aisle composed of soldiers, bristling in their mail and leather, polearms held stiffly vertical as they awaited the arrival of the Wood’s Witches and their charge:

The as-yet-uncrowned Prince of the Realm….

As the door at the far end of the audience chamber clunked and began to swing inward, Hecate took her own counsel and took in a steadying breath. 

_ Please don’t let him look like he’s spent the last twenty-odd years in a hovel in a magical wood surrounded by strange fey-folk…. _

The figure that entered the audience chamber as the ranks of soldiers butted their weapons once on the ground at-hail was everything the Chief Advisor to the Throne had hoped for….

_ This…. This is the Prince we’ve been dreaming of…. _

_ Well done, Witches. Well done…. _

* * *

Rhea rose, trembling, from her throne of chromium and silver. Her watery eyes found those bright-pine ones in a face kissed by sun and starlight, under fawn-brown locks of softest waves, and she knew him in her soul.

_ My son, my Aidoneus…. _

_ My bright boy, look how you’ve grown up…. _

She extended her arms to him, the words dying on her lips. 

_ Come to me, my son…. _

* * *

Thorn wasn’t quite sure about all this to-do. The way the soldiers thumped their staffs against the stone-laid floor seemed a little much, but he supposed that’s the kind of thing he’d have to get used to now.

_ Now that I’m a prince…. _

**_The_ ** _ Prince, at that…. _

_ At least I look the part. Thanks to the Aunties and their copper-pinching…. _

_ This is worth all those missed presents, for sure! _

The midnight-blue jerkin fit his muscled torso perfectly. The dagged white-and-sky sleeves of his blouse billowed from the tight caps at his shoulders, swirling in soft folds to his wrists as he walked into the chamber. The black linen pants were tucked into new boots; though it wasn’t winter, he knew it would have made a mock of the rest of the outfit if he hadn’t worn them.

He knew his Aunties had worked hard, selling spell-pouches and herbal remedies and doing Woods-knew what more than that to earn enough to buy this fabric, and he had figured out that they’d been working on it for months on end, to get it ready for today. 

He didn’t even want to think about the cost of the boots for his huge feet….

He’d do them proud. 

They’d raised a Prince.

He’d make sure the world knew it….

But first….

_ Mother…. _

_ I…. I dreamed your face…. _

He hardly ever remembered his dreams, but the few that had stayed with him had always featured this woman’s shining black eyes and billowing auburn hair. She held her arms out to him, and he moved more swiftly, mounting the steps of the dais and climbing to the throne with the grace born of a life bounding through woodland and fey-gardens under the moon.

_ Mother…. _

_ I do have a mother! _

He slowed abruptly as he crested the mountain holding up that gleaming throne. He could see how her hands trembled, and her face was pale in the flickering torchlight. There were shadows under her tear-damp eyes, and her lips were rose-bright beneath a delicately-angled nose. 

He could see hints of his own face in hers, and he wondered where his father was. There was only one throne here on this cliff above the floor of the audience chamber, and his mother, the Queen, stood before it, trembling as he hesitated just out of her reach.

He took a shuddering breath, and closed that little distance between an unknown past and an unknowable future, stepping between those bird-like hands and hunching to bring his own arms around his dreamed-for Mother….

* * *

Rhea could not believe it had finally happened. Her son, her beautiful son, her strong and obviously healthy son… was home at last. 

She could wait no longer.

Rhea broke from her son’s clinging embrace, one trembling hand brushing away the tears that dampened his apple-bunching cheeks as he smiled brilliantly. Those pine-green eyes reminded her terribly vividly of the King’s, and she failed to suppress a shudder as she stepped back from him. 

The heartbreak that tore through him mirrored her own pain as the memories ripped her apart inside. 

“No, my son, please. Do not fret. I only meant to retrieve this for you….”

She turned slightly, shivering fingers closing around the elegant chrome and platinum band where it rested on the arm of her throne; it had been precisely sized for her husband’s head all those long years ago, and she hoped it would fit her son’s….

Her lungs threatened to send her spasming to the floor, but she took in a deliberately-solemn breath as she moved back toward the Prince of Kthonia.

_ Can’t wait. Need this done. _

_ There’s no time to waste. _

Her son took a knee, his eyes level with the shallow valley down the center of the chaised breast-plate she wore over her midnight-blue gown. Ceremonial, it was; but the strength it forced into her frame was almost all that was keeping her upright at the moment as her lungs began to fail her.

_ No time to spare. _

“My son, long have we waited your triumphant return. I name you now, in sight of all these witnesses, by my power as Queen of Kthonia itself, and charge you take your place by my right hand, in my stead when I am no more.”

Her voice threatened to break, but she took a sharp-tearing breath and pressed onward.

“I name you Prince. I call you Crowned. I return to you the name you’ve never borne in truth.

“Rise, Aidoneus Rose, Crown-Prince of Kthonia!”

Her fingers left the coronet in place around his head, the metal forcing his mussy-soft oaky hair into bunching patches under its weight.

_ A perfect fit. _

His pine-green eyes had been focused entirely on her face, and she felt her knees buckle as the color drained from those beautiful orbs.

_ Cold. _

_ No…. _

* * *

_ No…. _

_ Not my son…. _

Rhea woke in her bed, and knew in the first ripping breath that passed her blood-dusted lips that she would leave it no more.

Her physicians bustled about, mixing, pounding, stirring, boiling….

She tried for a breath to tell them not to bother, but the air turned to shards of glass in her lungs.

_ He had known…. _

_ Of course he’d know…. _

_ Oh Kronos, you clever witch-King…. _

Her eyes drifted shut, an icy tear skating down her temple like lightning in a winter sky.

_ He wasn’t twenty-one yet, not truly…. _

_ He was born in the last minute of the day, the moments of darkness before the mid-night chime…. _

_ How could I have been so foolish…? _

The clock against the wall of her chambers tolled eleven marks, and she coughed and choked on the shredded dregs of her lungs as all her mistakes beat against her mind like storm-thrashed waves of salt-and-brine.

_ A fool, an utter fool I was…. _

_ Why did I not wait for you, my King? _

_ So immature. So foolish…. _

The image of the lover she’d taken into her bed when her husband had been away on one of his sorceror’s spellwalks flashed through her mind, and she was grateful there was almost no hint of that terrible choice in her son’s appearance. She clung to the memory of the way her son had looked, striding into the throne room with power and grace evident in every line.

She clung to the beauty of the memory as the pain of knowing she’d doomed all their dreams swallowed her whole. 

_ I’m so sorry, my son, my Aidoneus Rose…. _

_ He was right…. _

_ A woman’s love always dies…. _

_ I’m so sorry…. _

Her trust-broken husband’s words drowned her soul as her heart stopped beating and darkness stole her tear-streaked vision:

_ As you killed my heart, oh bright sun-Rose, _

_ So too your son will wither before he grows. _

_ Crown him, true, and know this sure: _

_ No woman’s love can e’er endure. _

_ His only hope, and that for life,  _

_ And living once more, out of strife, _

_ Is a kiss, soft-sweet, on his dark cold cheek, _

_ Against all hope and thoughts of receipt. _

_ Cold, he’ll be. Brooding, true: _

_ As dark and cold as I from you. _

_ What woman could look into these haunted eyes, _

_ And think that she could not despise? _

_ Ne’er-same he wakes, and this your prize: _

_ You will never have to see him die…. _

_ Of course I’ll never see him die…. _

_ I die, first…. _

The Queen’s last breath could have been a sob or sigh.

The physicians and healers and maids never could agree in any instance after.

The only thing for which they prayed thanks was that the Queen’s adviser was still trying to rouse the Young Majesty from his spell-bound stupor in the throne room.

Hecate would have wept in truth, and they knew, with one mind, that  _ that _ , more than any other sight, would have broken them all as well….

  
  
  


Nothing stirs the Crown Prince.

He could have been asleep, but his eyes were open, blank and staring:

Ice-blue horror where pine-green beauty had shown so bright mere minutes before.

The night grows dark, and hope dies in Kthonia….


	2. Blossoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your Swoonie provides....
> 
> Enter once more, and find the light....

_The mid-summer sun is bright this morning._

_The grass-caught flecks of dew burn to mist in the warm light._

_Wooden door-hinges and wagon wheels creak in the streets as the crowds begin to stir._

_The palace-side town awakes…._

* * *

_Okay, Persephone. Deep breath. You can do this._

_This is all gonna go exactly according to plan._

_Deep breath…._

She flung the folded edge of cream-colored linen off the top of the table, letting the slight breeze catch it and send it fluttering to rest against the boxed-in front of her market stall. Smiling brightly, she let out the deep breath and took in another.

_Open, for business, and it’s gonna be a great day…._

* * *

“Regent, you should take some rest. I assure you, we will let you know if anything changes.”

“No, Alecto. I must find a way to reach him….”

“Regent, please. You must believe us. Nothing can reach him, nothing that we would know to look for; the words of the curse, none but the Queen heard them, correct?”

“Yes, Tisiph-.... I’m sorry, I cannot remember how to pronounce your name….”

“Hecate, you need to rest. Kthonia needs you now, in place of the Young Majesty. You must project strength, or the kingdom will be in jeopardy. You need to rest. That is how you help him, now….”

“I…. Of course, Megaera. Thank you. You promise you’ll watch over him…?”

“Ever and always, dear friend.”

As her sisters shepherded the exhausted Regent from the bedchamber, Megaera brushed her fingers through the bone-white hair that had been a warm oak-and-fawn brown just days before.

“Oh, Thorn…. Ever and always, but I fear it won’t be time enough….”

She moved around the wing-backed armchair, bending to look into those icy eyes, hating the utter lack of color where pine-green beauty had gazed back at her lovingly for long, long years.

“If only we knew the words used…. But the Regent says the Queen never told a soul, only that the curse revolved around the coronet….”

Megaera turned to the chrome and platinum band, laid on a round-topped table just feet away from the entranced and broken Prince of Kthonia. Her fingers reached toward it, tendrils of power brushing against the metal, noting once again the utter lack of a magical residue.

“It’s done, and there is nothing to follow. The curse, it’s powerful, true. But every curse can be broken. Every spell can be undone if it will not simply run its coursing path….”

Her fingers curling into a fist, she flicked a thought to their cottage in the Bounding Wood so far away. The book she wanted materialized on a reading stand across the room, and she moved toward it, fist grinding into her other hand in a steady motion of controlled wrath.

“I won’t fail you, my bright-spark Thorn. I will find a way. You won’t fade, not while your Auntie Meg has eyes to read, hands to fight, and feet to carry me, even to the gates of the Hells themselves!”

* * *

Alecto and Tisiphone returned some time later; Thorn had not moved, seemed barely to have even blinked, and their sister was thoroughly engrossed in an ancient volume of lore only she could read.

Older they may have been, but when Megaera was like this, Alecto and Tisiphone knew better than to interrupt.

Their young sister was a powerful creature with gifts beyond even their ken.

If anyone could find a cure for a curse that no one living knew the wording to, it would be their sweet, terrifying sister:

Their sister who loved this young man as if he were her own son….

Alecto went to the large maroon-draped bed and began turning down the sheet. Tisiphone took up the stool beside Aidoneus’ high-backed chair and spooned a little more thinned-down broth past his lips. Reflexively, he swallowed, but there was no change in his expression or the feel of his Being.

The two witches held back tears as their sister’s power swirled in desperation through the room, searching, hunting, for answers that would never be found unless fortune smiled greatly upon Kthonia this bright-dark, warm-cold summer day….

* * *

Months went by. The winter was closing in, and Persephone held her mitten-bound hands before her open mouth to warm them.

The market would be all but deserted today, she was sure, but she had a feeling….

Though she and her mother went by the tamer, more accepted term of “herbalists,” they had never been mere gardeners and foragers. There was magic in their veins, magic that had been bound to the land and the plants that came from it long and long ago. Potions and spell-pouches, healing brews and tonics were their specialties, but that didn’t mean other, more ethereal magics were impossible for them.

Persephone thought this feeling might be a hint of foresight, and she would see it through.

The rumors that had swept through the town and countryside since the Queen’s sudden death in the summer had only grown more and more worrisome, especially as the Advisor-Regent continued to be the visible face of the monarchy. The one thing that everyone knew without doubt was that the lost-Prince had been returned to the palace, but no one had seen him: no one even knew what he looked like. It was _his_ name on official notices littering the message boards all over town and at every crossroads, but it was the Advisor Hecate’s seal and sigils that had the rumors spiraling still, nearly four months after the Queen’s death and the unseen Young Majesty’s return.

Persephone shivered slightly, bouncing on her toes, as a wind kicked up from the south.

And the other rumors, the ones from _outside_ Kthonia….

Those were more troubling than the insinuations that the dreamed-of Princeling was insane, dead, or otherwise incapable of fulfilling his birthright….

Demeter had come to see her a few weeks before, when this feeling, this strange feeling, had begun to make itself known in the moments before Persephone slept and the soft sighing breaths she would take immediately upon waking. Demeter had begged her to come back to their winter home in the north, farther away from the hints of massing spell-bound armies in thrall to a powerful-beyond-thought witch-King; Demeter had begged, and the fear in her mother’s eyes had nearly had her packing up shop and leaving everything she’d been building for herself here in the palace-side town.

But she’d held her ground.

She’d worked too hard for these past four months, establishing herself as the premier young herbalist with a remedy for every genuine ailment and more than a few whims and wishes….

If she could just secure one more wealthy patron as a recurrent customer, she could finally purchase that quaint little house on the fringes, the one with plenty of garden-space and cupboards and a tiny glasshouse for winter-growing.

Her mother had left, with a promise to return in the spring.

Persephone knew it was half-threat and half-hope.

Demeter was truly worried that war was coming, and Persephone only hoped her other feeling was right as well, that the rumors were _only_ rumors, that everything would turn out aright in the end.

The sun crept closer to noon, but it did little to warm the cold stone of the cobbles beneath her feet, to scour the wind-chill from her bones.

She sighed hard, bending to bring her baskets from under the edge of the table.

A softly-cleared throat had her straightening back up with a gasp, cracking her head on the edge of the table so she groaned and had to bite back a curse.

The Regent herself was standing across the table from Persephone, and the herbalist fumbled her way through a court’sy with a hand rubbing the knot on the top of her head.

“Please. I should have waited rather than announce myself so abruptly. I assume you know who I am?”

“Yes, Regent, I do. I am honored by your presence at my humble stall.”

“Not nearly so humble, if gossip be true. You have quite the following among many of the noble houses these days, and all within just a few months of arriving and setting up shop. I wonder if you’d be willing to ply your trade in service to the throne?”

Persephone’s mouth dropped open and clapped back shut so quickly her jaw popped in the socket. She moved her rubbing hand down from the crown of her head to her jaw and shuffled her feet.

“I…. I would be honored, of course. What should I be prepared for?”

“A general-use tonic, something to… oh, I suppose we could say, something to put some pep back in a down-and-out step. Do you think you might have something?”

Persephone narrowed her eyes and lowered her hand to twist in her skirts, trying to find the trap.

Because there had to be a trap.

A general tonic, in service to the throne, had the Regent herself, down in a market street on a chilly almost-winter day, with full guard and honors arrayed across the cobbles like a procession of royalty itself…?

_Not on my life._

“Are you sure there is not something more, um, urgent, Excellency? Any passing trader has perking tonics for sale; honestly, any apothecary here in the town can provide some garlic, oregano, and basil…. I’m not sure quite what more you expect from a young herbalist fresh to the city, but of course, I shall endeavor to please the Throne.”

“It’s you we want, and this is no trap in any shape, dear child.” The Regent appeared to be in her thirties or forties, with a body that had obviously never borne a child. Her tiny laughlines and oddly-placed dimples made her appear somehow ageless, though her eyes were shadowed within by some deep sorrow. “If you agree to try your hand at assuaging our need, the Throne is prepared to pay handsomely. Even to the balance you require to purchase that lovely cottage on which you’ve had your eye.”

Persephone’s hands flew to cover her mouth, and hope and terror flitted through her chest in equal measures.

“Truly, Regent? And if my tonic proves, Hells forbid, ineffective?”

The Regent cocked her head slightly, page-styled black hair coasting over metal-clad shoulders and leather-wrapped hands clasping before her sternum. Jet-dark eyes flashed with amusement, and somehow, approval.

“Consider the attempt itself worth the price. Give it your best effort, and you’ll have your dream, dear child.”

Persephone swallowed, but the feeling of destined pathways seemed to settle and solidify like the mortar between the cobbles under their feet.

“I’ll be at the palace with my supplies in the morning, Regent. I swear it true.”

“Excellent. The guards will not delay you when you arrive.”

The Regent turned and strode away, the guards and all falling in step behind her angular form. The midnight-black jerkin and coal-dark breeches the Regent wore could have fooled any being with eyes into thinking a man skilled with sword-and-buckler was contained within that cloth, and Persephone wondered just what sort of strange people inhabited the palace, that a woman in such a prominent position could wear something like that and not be scolded as a heathenish changeling.

_Then again, she’s the Regent._

_Who would dare tell her otherwise…?_

* * *

Persephone shivered slightly in the foyer of the palace. The guards behind her were silent, but oddly, they weren’t nearly as grim-feeling as their stony presence would have implied. There was a strange hopefulness pervading the air: the chilly, wintry air.

_Honestly, if these people want a pick-me-up, why not light a damn fire or two…?_

_Hells below and Woods Abounding, this place is cold…._

“Apologies, dear child!” The Regent came purposefully around a corner from a shadowed hallway. In fact, if Persephone hadn’t been looking in exactly the right spot, she’d have sworn it was nothing but a shadow on the wall from the shuttered windows high above and opposite. “We’ve minimized the staff in recent weeks, and some areas of the palace are being left poorly tended, but I promise your workspace will be warm and adequate to your needs.”

“I thank you, Regent. I was beginning to worry; one of the first rules of care for someone in need is that even a little sun and fresh air goes a very long way, and warmth in winter is just as necessary.”

“I knew you were the right choice, child. Not afraid to speak your mind, are you?” The glimmer of approving humor was a test, she knew.

No matter the odd camaraderie the Regent seemed to want to establish of a sudden, she was still a country-bred youth, here to _work_ , not chat.

Persephone held her tongue, a soft smile of expectancy lifting her lips in answer.

“Well, speaking your mind or no, there is one final price you must agree to in our negotiations. This matter is of the utmost delicacy. You can write, can you not?”

Persephone nodded, the pieces falling into place.

“This document is a contract of silence. Sign here, do your best for the person I’ve brought you here to assist, and the money you need for that cottage will be yours.”

Persephone read over the document presented to her on the portable writing desk, similar in construct to an artist’s palette. The thinly veiled threats of bodily harm should she break this vow of silence were obviously out of proportion to the circumstance….

_Unless I’m here to attempt to treat the unseen Prince…._

Though her logical mind told her to turn and run, that she’d be able to earn her cottage in the way she’d originally planned, that she didn’t need this risk, this terrible and terrifying risk….

The shattered shards of destiny fit further into their places in her soul, and she signed the contract in an ink redder than blood as a fiercely triumphant smile lifted the Regent’s lips….

* * *

Megaera coughed to wakefulness, Tisiphone’s hand cool on her feverish brow while Alecto’s pattering bare-feet dashed into the washroom nearby.

“What…?”

“Shhhh, Meg, easy. You don’t need to speak; you’ve done enough, truly….”

Tis’ eyes were shining with tears, and Meg coughed again, barely managing to catch her breath when Alecto careened back into the room with a shallow basin full of water and piled high with cloths.

“I can’t believe you’d be so reckless, Meg! Honestly, I can’t believe it!”

“Hush, Alecto, or I’ll kick your damned arrogant _ass_ into the Wood from here!” Tis surged to her feet, and Meg whimpered, reaching for her sister’s ashen hand as Alecto approached more slowly, cautious now in the face of Tisiphone’s rarely seen temper.

“I can’t believe it, but…. I’m so glad you were able to do it…. She’s here, Meg. Hecate found her, and she’s here, and they’re taking her to his room right now….”

Meg’s eyes slid closed, the toll the time-walk had taken on her body fading as the hope rode high, tears slipping from her lashes as Alecto’s warm hand stroked a cool cloth over her feverish brow.

“Thanks, Allie…. Thank you….”

Her sister’s sniffles followed her into a dreamless sleep as her body found rest from the magics she’d wielded for far too long and far too short an almost-time.

_She’ll be able to break the curse…._

_She’s the only one who can…._

* * *

Persephone was led to a room in an otherwise empty corridor high in the palace. She knew she’d never be able to find her way back out again without help; the reasoning for the placement of this room paired with the guards’ and Regent’s seeming willingness to leave her alone in this well-appointed room made a little more sense now.

_Even if I tried to steal something, they’d catch me long before I made it back to the front hall…._

_Doesn’t matter. Not here to steal._

_Here to work…._

The Regent’s instructions were incredibly simple, all things considered.

_“Do whatever you feel necessary. Take as much time as you need. Your efforts, even if they come to nothing, are our last hope.”_

Persephone gazed around the room, wondering where her patient was….

The gauzy curtains obscuring the large balcony windows fluttered then, and she realized the windows were thrown wide: thrown wide, and a large wing-backed chair was silhouetted against the pale-seeming morning light.

“Oh, hello. My name is Persephone, and I was told someone needed my assistance. I’m an herbalist from the town….”

White-as-ice locks of hair lifted in another soft breeze, and Persephone recoiled a little in shock.

_I could have sworn I’d read this situation right. I thought I was here to help the Prince, not an old man…. Maybe it’s just the light from outside…._

“May I approach, sir? I….”

No movement from the chair, except the short locks of white hair dancing a little more as the breeze picked up. No sound, except the curtains scritching softly along the floor under the wind’s insistence.

“Forgive me, sir. I’m just going to approach. Please forgive me for intruding….”

Persephone clutched her bag and basket close to her torso, hoping the man in the chair wouldn’t try to knife her for coming alongside him with no further warning than she’d already provided. She made sure her footsteps were audible, despite every instinct telling her to tiptoe and stalk the chair as silently as she stalked rabbits in her childhood wanderings….

_Perhaps he’s touched mentally, as well?_

She finally got to the balcony, sliding her parcels to the floor beside the dancing curtains. She tried once more to gain response, a soft “Sir?” floating through the air toward the burgundy-velvet chair, but still the figure that she could almost sense more than see did not shift, or speak, or make any indication that he knew anyone had entered his rooms and approached.

_Oh, please don’t let him be dead…! I can’t do dungeons, nope, nuh-uh…._

Persephone took the last few steps around the angles of wine-dark velvet and silver-gleaming tacks, and gasped in so deeply that she physically staggered backward into the balcony railing, the white marble cold beneath her trembling-clutching fingers.

“ _Thorn?!?!_ ”

The angles and planes of his handsome face were unmistakable as her man-child forest-waif, even though the gaunt look of his skin was terrible in its implications. How often had she thought back on that one morning and noontime, memorizing those beautiful angles, the way the sun had danced along his cheekbones, how his ears caught his wavy oak-and-fawn hair behind their gentle curves?

“Thorn, can you hear me…?”

She crept closer again, trying to see his eyes under his shadowed brows and wind-snarled icy hair.

His eyes, those pine-green eyes that had so captivated her dreams and fantasies for the long months since they’d met earlier that summer, so bright that brilliant day….

His eyes were bloodshot, broken, ice-white replacing beautiful green, and Persephone felt tears spilling from her own emerald eyes.

“Oh, Thorn, _please_ …. Please answer me….”

The face she’d come to love in dreams both waking and night-bound could have been carved from ancient stone. A slow blink, automatic against the gentle push of wind, closed off those icy eyes behind dark-shadowed lids for a breath, and the blank stare that was revealed again broke her heart into jagged shards of love-lost pain.

On the heels of that pain grew a fierce determination.

“I’ll give this everything I’ve got, Thorn. Herbalist I may be, but there’s more to me than roots and blooms.

“I’ll wake you from this… whatever this is, or my name isn’t Life-light in the ancient tongues!”

Her power sparked alive as she opened herself to the flow of energies that made all life possible. She snatched her bag and basket from the floor as she made her violent-striding way back into the chambers of the man she had loved for months, the man who now, somehow, was terribly cursed.

She could feel the light of her power and the various ingredients filling her parcels, just as she could feel the dark mist that seemed to cling to Thorn like a fog, a smoke, a shadow of pain from an Other being, one who was not here, but whose presence was somehow….

 _There_ ….

The shining silver-white band was almost obscured in her aura-sight by the black fog of the curse that had broken her forest-waif to this waking-death. Laid atop some toppled books on a corner table, it told her unequivocally that somehow, the young man dressed in ragged clothes in the Bounding Wood that long-past day was now the Prince of Kthonia.

Cursed.

Starving.

Swiping a wide tabletop clear of books and papers, not caring for the mess she made, she thunked her basket and bag to the mahogany surface. Pulling patina-shining bowls and mortars and pestles and cutting boards from her basket, she arrayed them all within reach before beginning to pull pouches and packets of herbs from her bag.

Her inner senses, her aura-sight, told her by the blending of the misty-bright colors which herbs would stand the best chance at cancelling out the terrible dark-aura of the curse that laid over the Prince like a miasma of ill-intent. She opened the bundles she needed, but before her fingers so much as brushed any of the plant parts that she would be using today, she took three deep breaths, clearing her mind of any thought but pure goodwill and love-borne light.

Only then did she begin preparing a remedy for the waking-death that held the man she loved in thrall to broken darkness….

* * *

A full half-hour later, Persephone walked with heavy step back onto the balcony. The sun had climbed a little higher while she worked within the chambers, but still, there was a chill that clung like swamp-moss around the chair where the Prince sat unblinking, unfeeling, unaware of anything outside the curse-bound depths of his mind. The cup of tea steamed in her hands, and she barely managed a shaky breath.

“Thorn, well, if that’s even your real name…. Thorn, I need you to take a sip of this. More if you can, but at least a sip. Please, _please_ , just…. Don’t choke, okay?”

Irony laced her smile as she bent over her mind-lost love, the edge of the ceramic cup parting his grey-tinged lips as she tilted it. The liquid, steeped full of love and pure intent for renewal and new life, dribbled down his chin a little, but he seemed to reflexively swallow a small mouthful before she pulled the cup away. She lowered the cup to the floor on the far side of the chair and then braced her hands on the arms of the chair, staring into those icy eyes, waiting for the shift that _had_ to come.

The darkness swirled a little more rapidly in her inner sight, but nothing faded as it should, and she felt tears spilling from her eyes as she realized the magic that held Thorn captive was far stronger and infinitely more potent than her own plant-bound power could ever hope to overcome.

“Oh, Thorn…. I…. I don’t know what else to do! Was I such a fool to think love could be something that simple, that fast?! Maybe it’s true, that it’s only ever that way in books and fireside-tales….

“Forgive me, Thorn, my forest-waif…. Forgive me for not being stronger, for not knowing more.”

She sniffled, beginning to pull away, but the thought came to her suddenly, that if she left, she’d never see him again. He was wasting away, that much was obvious; broth and water would only sustain a body for so long, and her healer’s intuition told her that he was rapidly reaching that point from which he’d never be able to recover if he couldn’t be roused to eat more substantial foodstuffs.

“And forgive me this, this one chance at what I’ll never find again….”

Her lips on his cheek as her tears wet a patch of cold skin near his hairline.

She turned then, darting away from the chair, blinded by grief and heart’s-pain. She shoved and tossed her supplies and tools back into her basket and bag, willy-nilly and all askewed, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore….

A soft scraping sound froze her, hands mid-tug on the strap of her bag where it crossed her chest.

She pivoted, slowly, glacial in her movement, and her eyes went wide as the pale-skinned hand managed to grip fully around the cup beside the leg of the chair and raise it up beyond her sight.

She made her way back to the balcony, hesitant steps making the distance seem far too heavy for such simple actions. She craned her neck as she came abreast of the chair, peering in disbelief at the way Thorn distractedly brought the cup to his lips and took a few slow swallows before lowering the cup to his lap.

He blinked, and a small pair of wrinkles sprang to life between his brows.

Persephone thought she’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

“Thorn…?”

He blinked again, and his face turned toward her on a trembling neck. His eyes were still ice-white, but somehow, there was a light behind the deadly color that hadn’t been there before.

A soft blush marked his cheek where her lips had touched him, fading even as she stared; their eyes met, and the hesitant trust that sparked to life in his gaze sent her heart thundering in triumph, a cavalry of heavy horse in full plate surging through her limbs as she realized the darkness of the curse _was_ fading….

But not broken, not entirely, and she had no idea how to keep things growing lighter for the forest-waif she loved so dearly.

Except, maybe….

Dropping her bag and basket to the floor with a thump and clatter, she dashed back into the room. She dragged another chair to the balcony, much less ornate but still comfortable enough for the purpose, avoiding the plushy rugs and the billowing curtains along the way. His eyes found her as she came back onto the balcony; she could feel his gaze as if a thread of silver is tying him to her, and she took care to keep her face to him as much as possible as she pushed the chair into position and took her seat.

She situated herself facing him, and she rummaged through her bag for the book he’d given her all those months ago, the book she’d bought with half-husked irritating fruits and a delightful midmorning of bright company and conversation.

“I’ve read it a few times now, Thorn, but I’m always willing to read it again. It’s a good story, very nice; I’m going to read it to you, and maybe you’ll come a little more back to me.

“Keep sipping your tea, though, you hear me?”

A crinkle there, at the corner of his eyes, and maybe his lips lifted a little in a smile. There was still a lot of confusion in his emotions, enough that she could nearly taste it as he took another sip of the herbal tea she’d brewed for him with all the love in her heart.

But the smoky-darkness of the curse’s power faded a little more as she began reading aloud from the book her Prince had given her in enthusiastic companionship earlier in the summer, and she knew she wouldn’t stop until the Regent came to drag her away….

“Once upon a time, in a dark wood, there was an old wizard. He had no wife, no children, but he was not alone….”

The sun climbed higher, and Persephone read to her waking Prince, driving the darkness away with gentle tones and heavy glances full of love and caring….

* * *

* * *

_Hecate comes to the young king’s bedchamber some hours later. Evening is beginning close in, and it’s time to see what the young herbalist with so much power had been able to accomplish. After all, the youngest Woods-witch had nearly been killed seeking the answers held in this girl’s soul: it had to have been worth the price…._

_She nearly passes out to see him standing, leaning on the mantle over the fireplace, staring into the flames. He’s not quite all there, still, but Hecate knows, can sense, that he’s better than he was._

_And she knows she has the young herbalist, napping curled in an armchair cradling a book to her chest, to thank._

_Robin’s-egg blue eyes turn away from the fire to look at her, and she thinks she can see a hint of the young king she caught a bare glimpse of the day he came home in the way he tries to smile._

_A sheepish little smile._

_Confused._

_Worried._

_But trying._

_Hecate goes to her young king, and the usually so stoic Chief Advisor to the throne weeps a little as she wraps her arms around his thin chest in a bittersweet embrace._

* * *

* * *

Months go by. Every day, the young king is getting stronger, physically, emotionally, mentally. He takes to his lessons on courtly manner and behavior like the prince he should always have been, and he develops a taste for many of the same foods his mother liked.

The rumors of a threat to the south remain mere rumors, but Hecate activates the kingdom’s network of spies to determine if there is a real danger.

And the young king continues to wake, day by day, even hour by hour.

His eyes keep deepening in color as the months pass, until they’re a deep sapphire blue, starkly bold and deeply captivating under the white hair that refuses to change. There’s no hint of the ice that had held his gaze bound for so long, though there’s sometimes a shadow of a deep sorrow in quiet moments in the evenings.

Persephone has been given quarters in the palace. She seems rather disinclined to take her payment - already received, stowed in a lockbox in her chambers - and go back to town and buy her cottage, even as the weeks stretch into months. She continues to brew love-infused tonics for the young king, and his eyes are brightest, a swirling blue of sun-kissed ocean waves, when she sits with him in the library, reading aloud to him as he quietly sips his tea.

She knows she’s in love with him. She can’t help it.

But she also knows he’s still rather broken. Hecate told her about the curse the week after she woke the young king from his stupor: that the young king, though he was his mother’s son and the rightful heir to the throne, had not been the son of the Queen’s husband.

Kronos had punished his unfaithful wife by cursing her son.

And it was only thanks to Persephone’s compassionate heart that the young king didn’t waste away to absolutely nothing.

“The kingdom in your debt,” is what Hecate had said.

Persephone had insisted there was no debt.

But still she stayed, falling more and more in love with a young king who in no way could ever come to love her back.

She was just the daughter of a traveling herbalist, after all.

There was no way a king would ever take her for a bride, much less a queen.

* * *

She was the light in the darkness that still sometimes tried to swallow him whole.

He knew now that the darkness wasn’t really his fault.

Hecate had told him everything.

He still hadn’t been to his mother’s grave. But he thought he might, soon.

He knew the curse might not ever really leave him.

But he didn’t think he could ever come back from the depths of that darkness if this little Life-light left him.

He had to find a way to keep her here, where he could see her, bask in her light and chase away the darkness.

He sipped the tea she brewed for him with such compassion as the summer breezes played through the curtains on his balcony, and the young king made up his mind to talk to Hecate.

After all, advisors are supposed to advise….

* * *

Persephone tugged and twisted at the moss-green fabric draping in elegant folds from her shoulders.

_Nope, can’t do it._

She turned to leave, to walk away from the closed door into the formal dining room, but the door swung open. So she swung back around.

The butler bowed, waving her in with a white-gloved hand.

She fumbled a court’sy and bowled past him.

She careened to a stop at the side of the long mahogany table, eyes scanning back and forth, not seeing him anywhere. She heaved out a sigh.

And heard a chuckle from a nearly-hidden door across the room.

He stepped out from the shadows, and she was captivated by the way the sapphire satin clung to his shoulders, by how the black trousers tucked perfectly into the top of his near-knee boots, the newly-forged crown gracing his brow in soft-angled spires of ice-white titanium and chrome.

He came closer to her, and his eyes were the intense blue of an autumn sky.

He pulled out a chair for her, and handed her into it.

He kept hold of her hand, and went to one knee.

“Persephone, it has not escaped my notice that you linger in the palace when, by rights, you were free to leave the day you came.”

She could only gulp.

“I…. I can’t remember if ever I told you how very grateful I am that you were strong enough, brave enough, to kiss the cold cheek of a broken man when you had no way to hope that he could ever return your affection. How very grateful I am that you were brave enough to let yourself feel that compassion and love, for both of our sakes.

“I’m still learning about myself, what it means to be the King of this realm, what it means to be the man I never knew I would need to be. I….

“I still struggle, you know. This curse, it may never let me go. But I know that I feel most alive when you’re beside me. That I feel less like a broken man, less a cursed King, when you sit near me and I sip those delightful brews you never seem to run out of!”

She could only chuckle with him.

“It may be the height of selfishness and an arrogance unbecoming in a King, but I can’t fathom a life without you.

“I need you to stay. I need you, beside me, with me. Or I fear that darkness will take me once again.

“Can I offer you anything, at all, that would entice you to remain with me, here, so that I may selfishly avail myself of your continued light?”

* * *

Persephone blinked as autumn-sapphire eyes delved into her spring-green gaze. Her breath was somehow steady, and her voice sure:

“Two things….”

“Name them.”

“A promise….”

“Of what?”

“And that you’ll try….”

“Try… what?”

“A kiss….”

He smiled, and half-rising from the floor, he gently placed his lips to hers.

She snatched her hand from his, threw her arms around his neck, and let go of every worry, every inhibition.

She kissed him, hard, and knew she’d get her wish….

* * *

The rumors were only rumors after all, the spies reported to the Chief Advisor the following spring.

Kronos had no armies, no forces for any kind of invasion.

He lived alone, in the dark woods in a hidden valley in the mountains to the south, and the spies reported that he seemed content to live out his life in seclusion. His gardens were tended, his small flock of sheep well-cared for, and the few glimpses they caught of him showed a man swallowed up in study, a recluse in all but name, and content to remain so.

The rumors died down as the wedding approached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told y'all I was aiming for the depths of your souls!
> 
> I promise nothing, but I have not ruled out an epilogue, wherein I write a wedding and the night after. However, that would inevitably become a not-Teen rated thing, so.... This fic, itself, is done....
> 
> Now.
> 
> I could talk all night about the over-arching metaphor of this fic - Depression - but I'm tired. It's 11:30 at night. Let me just leave it at - depression is a mental condition that so many people cannot actually control by willpower alone, and support systems are sometimes the difference between life and death. 
> 
> If you are struggling with depression, or anything similar, you can always reach out to me on the LO Discord (same handle). However, a fic-friend is no fit substitute for the professionally-trained help an actual therapist can provide. 
> 
> Therapy saves lives. Please avail yourself of it as needed. 
> 
> It's saved my life before....
> 
> For more mental headspace adventures, please read my fic Titans Reborn and the various sequels and addendums thereto. 
> 
> For a shorter headspace study, try Need: Fulfilled.
> 
> In all instances, your love is yogurt to my Swoonie-self and soul. (To understand that reference - Titans Reborn.)

**Author's Note:**

> One final note:
> 
> Myself and other fanfic writers have recently been made aware that some readers of the canon (and fics based upon the canon) of Lore Olympus believe that Rachel is “stealing” ideas from us. 
> 
> Allow me to be blunt:
> 
> Nothing could be less true. 
> 
> Any similarity between my works of fanfiction (and those of other fic-writers) and the Lore Olympus canon is due to the authors’ use of common source material, in the form of Greek myths, as well as being a devoted superfan and paying attention to Rachel’s carefully-placed and exquisitely-crafted details. Any time there is an overlap of plot, even to the point of a single iota or detail, it is only due to coincidence or careful work on the fanfic author’s part. 
> 
> When these details show up in canon, the fanfic authors - myself included - feel nothing but joy upon having guessed correctly. 
> 
> All of this to say - fanfiction is fiction-produced-by-fans-for-fan-consumption-from-an-overabundance-of-fandom-love. No one is stealing anything from anyone. 
> 
> Ever and always, the characters, settings, specifics of plot, and details of design all are borrowed temporarily from Rachel Smythe for my work herein as a fanfiction creator. I hope you've enjoyed, and thank you for playing, once more, in my headspace.... 
> 
> -Swoonie, 30 March 2020


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